


Someone Special

by palmsandsunshine



Category: Haikyuu!!, ダイヤのA | Daiya no A | Ace of Diamond
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Developing Relationship, M/M, Rare Pairings, it doesnt make sense but thats alright, this entire fic was made to spite one of my friends, yes you read that relationship tag correctly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:34:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28716591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palmsandsunshine/pseuds/palmsandsunshine
Summary: “Hi!” He exclaimed, holding out a hand to shake like the adults usually did. “I’m Mei! Wanna be friends?”And, just like that, they were friends. Tobio didn’t know it could be so simple.
Relationships: Narumiya Mei/Kageyama Tobio
Kudos: 23





	Someone Special

**Author's Note:**

> dearest lucy, this is for you.
> 
> i'm not sorry.

Mama’s friends from Tokyo came over to visit. Tobio didn’t know what to think. He didn’t make friends very easily. All the kids at his elementary school avoided him. He knew the Narumiyas had a son a little older than him; only a year if he remembered correctly. But he wasn’t too keen on trying to become friends. Talking to people took too much effort and it was confusing and made his head spin. He’d rather be on his own with a volleyball.

The Narumiyas came in and Miwa greeted the two older Narumiya sisters with as much joy as their mothers greeted one another. Apparently, they had gone to college together and remained close friends.

Tobio hid behind his father’s leg. Outside the door frame, he made out a figure mirroring his position behind his own father’s leg.

He had blonde hair and wide blue eyes. Once they made eye contact, he stepped around his father and walked over to Tobio with an easy and confident smile.

“Hi!” He exclaimed, holding out a hand to shake like the adults usually did. “I’m Mei! Wanna be friends?”

And, just like that, they were friends. Tobio didn’t know it could be so simple.

———

“I miss you.”

“Don’t be so stupid, Tobio. I just saw you last month. I even slept over!”

“That’s different,” Tobio sighs quite dramatically, collapsing backward on his bed and pressing the phone closer to his cheek. He couldn’t get enough of the sound of Mei’s voice. “I just… Middle school is different and hard and I don’t like it.”

“I know, Tobi…” Mei’s voice softens into one of fond understanding. “Change is scary. But you went to a school with a strong volleyball team, right? Maybe you can improve a lot! The senpais there can teach you so many new things.”

“Like?”

“Like jump-serves! And cool ways to spike and receive. I’m sure you have a couple cool senpais there that can do cool things!”

Tobio thinks of Oikawa-senpai with the crazy powerful serve and Iwaizumi-senpai with the scary spike. “...my senpais  _ are _ pretty cool.”

“Not as cool as me, I hope?” Mei teases.

Tobio imagines Mei in his baseball uniform, his bright blue eyes glittering happily from atop the mound. A giant smile lit up his face every time he pitched successfully. He was the star of the show in more ways than one.

“Not as cool as you,” Tobio answers truthfully.

———

Mei liked to complain a lot. He complained about baseball (“Why can’t my team just  _ hit the dang ball _ for once in their life?!”), he complained about his friends (“Kazuya’s being an idiot again. I don’t have a weakness?!”), he complained about school (“I hate math.”), and, more recently, he complained about his love life.

“I’m flattered, really, but I just don’t know what to do when someone confesses to me!” Mei laments, his voice growing quieter and louder in increments, like the waves cresting and falling at a timely rhythm. Tobio imagines Mei pacing his room, in the gap between his bed and his desk, wearing a hole into the hardwood floor. “What do I do, Tobio?”

“...are you asking me?”

“I just did, didn’t I?”

Tobio considers the question. He doesn’t know what he would do. Probably freeze. Wait until the person walked away at his non-answer. Maybe Tobio would be the one to run away first. He wouldn’t know. He decides to answer in the best and most truthful way he can: “I haven’t gotten any confessions. I wouldn’t know what to do.”

There’s a silence over the line.

_ “What?!” _

Mei’s screech comes as a surprise to Tobio, and he nearly chucks his phone across the room. He stutters out a response.

“I… I haven’t g-gotten confessed—”

“You tell those stupid Miyagi kids that they are  _ blind, _ youu hear me?!  _ Blind. _ What—”

Tobio can’t help the snicker.

“I’m not as popular as you think I am, Mei”

“So you’ve never been confessed to? Never been in a relationship?”

“Hm? No, never.”

“So… this would be a first?”

“Wha—”

“Tobio, I like you. Please go out with me.”

Tobio’s heart stutters in his chest. “...Mei…?”

“You can’t see me right now, Tobio, but I swear I’m bowing down. Pretend I have an envelope in my hands or something.”

“This isn’t a joke, right?”

“No, Tobio. I’m completely serious.”

Their relationship takes another step.

Mei becomes a more fundamental part of Tobio’s life. Mei holds Tobio (both literally and physically) after the death of his grandfather. Tobio supports Mei’s first Koshien appearance in-person. Mei reassures Tobio that he isn’t broken, that “King of the Court” isn’t always a bad thing, that having confidence in your plays isn’t a bad thing, that being yourself is  _ never _ a bad thing.

Tobio just mails Mei a copy of one of the local Sendai newspapers, with Mei’s face plastered on the front page, captioned ‘Prince of Tokyo’. Mei calls him in indignation when it finally arrives.

———

Tobio didn’t know what attracted him to Mei. They were from completely different parts of the country. They played different sports. They were a year apart. Their personalities were polar opposites. There was absolutely nothing in common between them.

Perhaps to Tobio, the fact that they had met all those years, let alone  _ started a relationship _ in middle school seemed like destiny. Like a god had butt in and made themself known; the crimson threads of fate or something like that. Maybe it made him a little blind. Maybe he was simply naive.

But he was truly in love… or at least he thought he was. They didn’t have very much free time, so they left texts during breaks or after practices. Whenever possible, Mei would visit Sendai or—more often—Tobio would visit Mei while he was in Tokyo. They were affectionate—sickeningly so. Tobio loved it when Mei stroked his fingers through his hair. Mei loved it when Tobio hugged him. Their teammates and friends were supportive (how could they  _ not _ be, when Tobio looked at Mei with stars in his eyes, and Mei couldn’t seem to let go of Tobio’s hand).

Everything was perfect.  _ Too _ perfect. Gilt over a rotting frame.

The first fractures of their broken relationship showed up sometime before Tobio’s first inter-high.

———

Oikawa had always been the most scary person to Tobio. He was always a few inches taller than Tobio, he was two years older, he had an air of confidence around him that was much less welcoming than Mei’s, and he always fixed Tobio with a stony glare.

Hinata had taken to calling Oikawa “The Great King”, which Tobio had to agree with. Everything he learned about volleyball had either been learned or improved from observing Oikawa do it first. If he was a King, Oikawa was even greater.

Mei never really appreciated Tobio’s hero-worship of Oikawa. He had every reason to. Tobio told him of the near-slap incident, of all the ways Tobio felt isolated in middle school, of how Kitagawa Daiichi was a nightmare in more ways than one and Tobio never wanted to go back.

Mei had been one of the main reasons Tobio didn’t go to Aoba Johsai, Kitaichi’s main filter high school. He had convinced Tobio that there were better places he could go, places where he could get a new start, and Tobio had listened, as he always did, and decided to go to Karasuno.

Instead of “The Prince of Tokyo”, Mei had been upgraded to a self-anointed “King”, claiming that he wanted a nickname as cool as Tobio’s. (Though he secretly lamented the fact that it still wasn’t as cool as Hongou Masamune’s “Emperor” nickname. Tobio didn’t see the point in nicknames anymore.)

“I…” Tobio began one day, cutting off one of Mei’s rants that he had only been half-listening to over the phone. “...I don’t think I want to be called ‘King of the Court’ anymore.”

“Why not?”

Tobio doesn’t know exactly why.

The silence over the line lasts for a few minutes before Mei eventually hangs up.

———

“Are you coming to see the qualifiers this week?”

“No… I’m sorry Tobio, we have a bunch of practice games lined up this week. I won’t be able to go to Miyagi and then come back.”

“You’re missing my first high school tournament?”

“...I’m sorry. It’s just not possible. I wish I could go, I really do.”

“I went to your games last year.”

“Tobio, please don’t do this.”

Tobio hangs up the phone. He pretends that the triumph after every won game isn’t fueled by spite. And when they lose against Aoba Johsai in the finals, he doesn’t come crying to Mei like he usually does.

———

Maybe Tobio should’ve known. It’s impossible for two kings to work together.

———

The call comes entirely out of the blue. Tobio is walking home with Hinata after practice ended early. He looks down at the contact number and sees the name he’d almost entirely forgotten about the past few weeks.

“Mei,” he says, in lieu of greeting.

“Tobio.”

“How are you?”

“I’m alright.”

“Why did you call?” 

Mei lets the silence hang for an uncomfortable amount of time. Tobio knows what’s coming, he can feel it deep in his soul. It’s been creeping up behind them for the past few months but they’d been too stubborn—too naive—to believe it. Even if they did, they wouldn’t know how to fix it.

“Let’s break up.”

A bucket of cold, crisp water dumps itself over Tobio’s head. The tension in his body drains. He feels tears in his eyes, but they aren’t angry and hot. He feels relieved.

“Alright,” he acquiesces breathlessly. But he’s not done. There’s something else he needs to know. He was never this forward before. “Did you find someone else?”

“I— you…” Mei stutters, sounding taken aback and unsure. It’s so unlike him that Tobio has to mentally check and make sure that this is  _ really _ Mei. Maybe they’ve both changed beyond recognition. “Yes… there’s someone else. Someone special to me.”

“I see.” Tobio glances down at Hinata, whose eyes are wide and worried as he listens in.

He shakes his head and remedies his words. “I understand.”

“...take care, Tobio.”

“You too, Mei.”

Tobio hangs up. There, on the sidewalk in Hinata’s arms, Tobio mourns.

**Author's Note:**

> laughs in spite


End file.
